How to design ballots, great report

IssueLab, whose energetic staff member Lisa
Brooks I met at Open Ed 2008, is a place for non-profits to share their
research. Having worked at CARE
Indonesia, I certainly know first hand
that much great research is produced, and never shared, often even lost
among staff changes and USB keys, so this is a very valuable initiative.
Even more so, since they have also started an OER
Repository.

They just sent me a copy of their “annual research
round-up“, featuring their most
downloaded
research, the
oldest research ever
deposited, etc. Among
their staff picks, I
found a very interesting report on the design of ballots for the US
voting system. Only people living under a stone could have missed all
the problems with recounts and voting problems in 2004, and although
improved, there were many issues noted in 2008 as well. It’s easy for
outsiders to make glib comments about “how hard can it be to put a cross
in a box”, and “those stupid Americans”, but it turns out that some of
these ballot boxes are very complex and confusing. These issues of
course tend to disproportionally affect poor, older, less-educated or
minority voters, which makes dealing with them extremely important.

Al
Franken ran for Senator of
Minnesota, and the tally was so close that it triggered an automatic
recount, which is still going on. Minnesota Public Radio presented a
number of the ballots being
challenged,
with pictures, and this was the first time I actually saw an American
ballot, and some of the problems that could occur.

The report “Better
ballots” produced by
the Brennan Center for
Justice,
is a really interesting read. Extremely well written and nice on the
eyes, it lays out simple principles for how to design a user-friendly
ballot, and does so with many examples of the actual ballots, supported
with statistics showing that the precincts using certain ballots have
much higher rejection rates than the national average. They also go
through relevant election laws, for example in New York, that run
counter to good ballot design.

An interesting read, and I am sure human interface designers working on
software usability or print designers would have something to learn from
this as well.